Kostya’s Magical Reykjavik Open: A Recap!

I had the 2017 Reykjavik Open in my sights for a couple of months. After earning my final IM norm back in November and immediately tanking at the 2016 North American Open in December, I took a much-needed break away from competitive chess to re-evaluate where I was at and ask myself some tough questions. Did I still want to put in the immense time and effort to pursue the grandmaster title? Well yes, yes I did. OK maybe it wasn’t too difficult to answer the question. But as I started to ponder over which tournaments I should play to take my chess to the next level, everything about the upcoming Reykjavik Open just seemed to fit—the timing was good, the field was incredible, with stars like Anish Giri, Baduur Jobava, Alexei Shirov, Alexander Beliavsky (!) among others, and the fact that it’s become cheaper to fly to Iceland than ever before really cinched it for me, not to mention the large number of Americans that play in the event every year.

So it was settled, and joining me this time would be CM Isaac Steincamp, who actually reached out to me last year after reading my article about my 2016 Chess EuroTrip. To put it mildly let’s just say I inspired Isaac to take a semester off from his studies at the University of Pittsburgh and engineer his own incredible EuroTrip. As fate would have it, Isaac and Tom Riccardi (my travel mate from last year) are now teammates at Pittsburgh! Isaac’s trip, which started in February this year, included travels to play in tournaments all over Europe, ending in Reykjavik. In total he gained 186 FIDE (!) rating points, which is mostly a testament to the fact that he was greatly underrated going into the trip, but still, what an achievement!

Unlike last year, this time I was just traveling for the one event, and as luck would have it it turned out to be the best performance of my career: 7.5/10 with a 2505 performance rating, which was good for the Top U2400 prize, as well as shared 6-10th place overall! Not bad considering I was about the 60th seed going in! Anish Giri took down the top prize with a blistering 8.5/10.

Isaac and I were big fan boys and snagged a photo with Anish + Sopiko at the closing ceremony!

Well, here’s how it all went down: The Reykjavik Open is a 10-round swiss that took place from April 19-27. It’s a very enjoyable tournament, one of the main reasons being it takes place at a pace of one round a day! The best part about that is that you have time to actually enjoy the chess. You get ample time to prepare for the round, then you play, and then when you’re done, there’s no second round to rush off to rest/prepare for. You have the evening off to go over the game with your opponent and conduct a proper post-mortem. The playing hall was located at the gorgeous Harpa concert hall, really one of the most beautiful playing venues one could imagine. The skittles area was located next to the in-house restaurant, and it wasn’t unusual to see 2700s enjoying a beer while analyzing their game.

Honestly, I was not expecting to do well in the event. Having not played serious chess for a few months I expected to be rusty, and I did feel like I had to re-learn how to play, so to speak. Ultimately my only “goal” was to enjoy the game/trip as much as possible. I also came up with an interesting project for the tournament—having recently started a YouTube channel and wanting to create content for it, I decided to record an unfettered post-mortem of each one of my games, round by round. Unfettered in the sense that I would discuss my candid (sometimes very candid) thoughts on the game without first running the game through an engine or checking the opening database. Thus, the viewer could get my untarnished thoughts on the actual struggle, the critical moments, where I thought I went wrong or right, without the consistent caveat of “oh by the way, Stockfish actually says this”. Apart from creating what I thought would be an engaging concept, I also felt like it would be really great for my chess to critique my own games without Stockfish butting in every two seconds and ruining the fun.

I pitched the idea to Isaac, who in his spare time runs Chess^Summit, a great site for improving players, and he instantly suggested a collaboration, wanting to join me in the game analysis. The show was born! Every night after our games were finished, we’d go back to our rented AirBnb and record the video. We took turns presenting our game and often discussed different variations based on our initial impressions. At the risk of sounding arrogant, the videos turned out to be incredibly instructive. Then we had to deal with the task of trying to get the word out about our video. Often this felt more challenging than the chess itself 😉. We’d start off by posting on our respective Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then we’d share/retweet from other social media accounts that we are in charge of, as well as sharing each other’s links. Then we’d put up a link on Reddit with some kind of click-baity title, like “IM Kostya Destroys The London System In 30 Moves”. It was kind of exhausting, I have to say. But the response was good! Those who watched the videos enjoyed them, for the most part.

At one point we decided it’d be fun to record a little tour of the event, to show our fans some behind the scenes of all the action. Here it is:

Now on to the actual tournament! My first half was unsurprising in terms of the result and my quality of play. I won my first two games playing down, though not without some struggle. Then in Round 3 I lost to GM Josh Friedel without even knowing where I went wrong. It was a bit surreal, actually. My post-mortem with him was invaluable…it essentially turned into a private lesson about the game we had just played, as I really had no clue what was going on. I’ll present the game here without annotations; try to guess where Black went wrong, and then you’ll need to watch the video for the answer! (I’m getting better at this internet marketing thing).

This turned out to be our longest video yet, which goes to show that we practice what we preach to our students: you learn more from your losses!! Thankfully, my mood was not spoiled one bit to lose the game as I did—I knew I would learn a lot from it.

Round 5. Right before I got brutally checkmated! Photo: Lennart Ootes

I bounced back with a topsy-turvy win in Round 4 and then in Round 5 I faced GM Helgi Dam Ziska, the strongest player of the Faroe Islands. While the loss to Josh was purely strategic, this one was painfully dynamic. I badly misplayed a Sicilian and got wrecked (as the kids say) with a thematic Nd5 sacrifice:

Check out my unfiltered thoughts on the game here! At half-time my tournament took a dramatic upswing, as I finished with 4.5 out of my remaining five! I won in Round 6 and Round 7 with real ease and a real sound quality of play in these games, which would give me another crack at a GM in Round 8: GM Magesh Panchanathan, a friend who has been living in the U.S. for many years now. After some tough defense on my end we ended up drawing in a really interesting endgame.

Round 8. It wasn’t my turn so I looked at the camera. People say I look intense? Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

In Round 9, I was paired with IM Gudmundur Kjartansson of Iceland, actually another friend. While preparing my usual King’s Indian I saw that he had a number of games in the ultra-sharp Mar Del Plata variation in the Classical Main Line. You know, the line where Nakamura has beat down almost every top d4-player: Kramnik, Anand, Gelfand, and So, among others. Having never played it before, I felt it would be a good surprise for this game as I could prepare it quite deeply. My opponent made a bad decision to not deviate from his usual line, which was quite fortunate as I got a dream position from the opening and went on to win a lovely King’s Indian in style. Here’s my full analysis, including a detailed review of my prep:

This put me in a great spot going into Round 10, I had 6.5/9 and was paired with IM Burak Firat of Turkey, who’s about 2500 FIDE. A positive result in this game would secure a huge rating gain and a prize. I showed up to the round a few minutes late, at which point Isaac greeted me at the entrance and broke the wonderful news: my game from Round 9 had won the Brilliancy Prize! This was a prize awarded by the organizers to the best game of each round. I was truly shocked, both Giri and Shirov also won fantastic games on the previous day, so it was quite humbling to say the least.

My last round game was quite dramatic. I felt worse from the opening but my opponent overextended on the clock, spending too much time looking for a way to unbalance the game. In his time trouble, I seized my chance and forced an error to win a fine endgame:

And that was that! After I won, I couldn’t believe what I had done! 7.5/10 in one of the biggest opens in the world? I was just as shocked as everyone else! The closing was a blast, it was my first time receiving a prize in a European tournament, with all the fanfare, roses, handshakes and all, and, since I had earned 6th place along with Top U2400 honors, I ended up receiving two prizes, and two roses! So that was pretty sweet, not gonna lie 😊. The congratulations and questions of a GM norm started pouring in on Facebook, but with just a 2505 performance, of course, I was quite far away from that coveted 2600.

Looking back on the tournament, I realize that I was in a really great mindset for most of my games and didn’t make any huge blunders overall. I stayed objective and made good, practical decisions. Now, I get to play the game of trying to figure out what went right for me in this tournament, so that I can try to recreate it for future events. Well, until next time, cheers!

With Isaac & Fiona Steil-Antoni from the closing ceremony.

IM Kostya Kavutskiy is a professional chess author, player, and coach currently residing in Mountain View, CA. To connect with Kostya, check out his website, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Comments

A little misleading to say the pace is 1 round per day, when there is 1 day where there are 2 games played. I believe the European standard is 1 round a day with the round time at 3pm. As the Harpa is a public venue used for concerts, later starts are not always possible. Thus, I believe you have 1 day with 2 rounds at 10am and 3:30pm. Maybe no rush between rounds, but not a lot of time either. When the Malta Open does 2 rounds in a day the round times are 10am and 5pm. Much better if you ask me.

First the good news…Fantastic/ wonderful to read world class article to ride through like the Lone Ranger once rode Silver! THE KAVUTSKIY was really a-cooking on this one. Pure unadulterated joy plus real chess theory labor…Did you play over every game? I certainly did. Not used to seeing first rate pro chess work in the largely mickey mouse -oh- isn’t -that -cute world of the PATHETIC WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING/ chess is hopeless .. old US CHESS world .. US CHESS SUDDENLY immeasurably improving by the day..UNCENSORED TO BOOT! Atomic glow photos here of Fiona, Isaac and THE KAVUTSKIY also immediately suggest people are entranced by the chess board/ chess people all of their lives. The bad news: Sorry young upstarts… all future title qualifier and even world class/ world rated multi million dollar chess is headed for 6-10 games PER DAY / one half hour a game period/ ONE GAME WITH EACH COLOR VERSUS EVERY OPPONENT..with ABSOLUTELY NO LEAVING THE BOARD FOR ONE SECOND DURING PLAY AS IN THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER…. OR YOU FORFEIT- PERIOD. Massive computer fraud and huge coming liability to CASINO AND MEGA BROADCAST SPONSORS for even allowing massive already previously known computer cheating methods … caught in hundreds of events already points to this. The killer crusher is that fast chess INCLUDES the whole chess world/MEGA MILLIONS and lifts the incredible survey estimated 6OO,OOO,OOO( SIX HUNDRED MILLION AND COUNTING DAILY!) PHONE APP CHESS PLAYERS out of their shadows, escaping very real cash and promotional chess poverty. (More people now play chess daily than golf) World chess titles are foolishly ,absurdly allowed for an ELITIST time control not one chess player in a thousand plays in an entire year..I.E CAB DRIVERS, PARENTS, MAILMEN, POLICEMEN, FIREMEN, RESTAURANT OWNERS, SCHOOL TEACHERS . In ALL CASES i.e football, soccer, baseball, golf, tennis ETC… the public plays akin to the pros period. The world chess title final match will soon be a murderous 10 games only/ drawn round each day impossible… no draw by agreement EVER allowed / two games flat per day and one hour per game flat with a drawn round impossible..a playoff as in Tennis and Golf determines the days/ rounds winner. Stalemate will be a win for the last moving player. 3 points for a win, 1 point to black for a draw and 0 to white if a draw or loss .. Having had the colossal privilege of a lifetime of slow games with Fischer, Browne , Larsen, Kaplan, Grefe,Tarjan ,Sveshnikov , Jansa, Balashov, Addison,Evans, Koltanowski, Bisguier ,Dake ,Denker, Cebalo and hundreds of others..I would simply love that slow chess survive as it totally gave me a titanic wonderful world over 65 years. But friends , neighbors and countrymen..no way this is going to happen no matter what I prefer … chess for world time zones broadcast must be speeded up TREMENDOUSLY and mercilessly… world rated with hurricane force no matter what I prefer.(“Everyone should have ONE RATING…A FIDE rating” Kasparov, 2016) A player must ask the referee for a declared draw. THE PLAYERS MAY NEVER COMMIT FRAUD BY DRAW BY AGREEMENT. A double forfeit is already guaranteed by some major FIDE sponsors if the massively sponsored world wide broadcast game is considered no contest or in any way prearranged(“no contest-no cash- you are both out ” as in boxing). The players are specially warned FOR THESE EVENTS one day before the start of Moscow million dollar plus candidates series and final match…it must be approved only by the referee,AGREEING TO ANYTHING IN ADVANCE or in the hallway during play is rightly considered pure fraud, theft of cash from the sponsors and spectators.. ..Time moves on. It’s coming fast.( for further reference and your reading pleasure we suggest world class chess critics/eyewitnesses GOICHBERG, FINEGOLD,KAUFFMAN,DLUGY) They are the voice of authority, the real deal.Read rapidly. Jude Acers/ New Orleans

Have you read the FIDE Rating rules? Most tournaments don’t (and can’t) meet the requirements. Perhaps all masters should have a FIDE rating, but they would still need another rating system to play in regular tournaments.

Or perhaps Kasparov was trying to say that FIDE should change it’s rating rules so that all players could have a FIDE rating?

[…] of the strongest events of the year.” in 2017, Kostya Kavutskiy wrote about the same event in his Magical Recap, “After I won, I couldn’t believe what I had done! 7.5/10 in one of the biggest opens in […]